‘The Last of Us’: why episode 1×03 is already one of the best of the year

Spoilers for ‘The Last of Us’ 1×03 below

Finding love in the middle of the apocalypse, what things! The third episode of the first season of ‘The Last of Us’ on HBO Max is called to be one of the best of the year because it reminds us that, even when all hope seems lost, it will be love and not hate that will make it worth living. The 1×03 of ‘The Last of Us’ moves away from the main narrative of the story to focus on the relationship of two men over 20 years and shows that in this dystopia about the end of the world there are not only shootings and confrontations with monstrous creatures: also the idea that, in an unrecognizable world, the important things remain the same.

Already considered one of the best series of 2023, as well as one of HBO’s most anticipated series in 2023, ‘The Last of Us’ is building week by week a mosaic of stories around Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) , the leading couple, but in their third episode they become secondary to give space to the story of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett), which in the original video game was nothing more than a suggestion from the past (For more details, we have compiled the differences between the series and the video game of ‘The Last of Us’, although the HBO adaptation is really faithful). Here, creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann decide to expand on what fans never saw. And our hearts have been broken.

When the fungus begins to spread, Phaedra evacuates small populations throughout the United States, and in one of them it escapes a hermit who has spent his whole life preparing for the end of the world. Hiding in his secret basement, Bill manages to circumvent the evacuation and becomes the only inhabitant of the place. Now, his carefully organized plan goes far beyond enjoying the silence: Bill turns his development into a fortress surrounded by fences, protected by traps and monitored by security cameras.. His plan to survive is foolproof, and consists of isolating himself completely from the world. The metaphor makes itself from the first minutes.

One day, the alarms go off and Bill discovers that a man has fallen into one of his traps. He is not one of the infected. His name is Frank. Although with some suspicion, Bill invites him to enter and have dinner with him before continuing on his way. From series like ‘The Walking Dead’ we learned to be afraid of this type of moment, to think that this intruder has come to disturb the peace and do something bad. But actually, Frank arrives to save Bill from his loneliness.. He arrives to make him see that to live in isolation is to die in life, that it is relationships and the ability to trust others that make existence fulfilling.

Both of them will share every moment, the good ones and the bad ones, they will make friends (with Tess and Joel, no less) and finally they will die together in one of the most heartbreaking scenes of the series so far: Frank, sick, decides to take his own life after a last romantic dinner and Bill, knowing that he is happy and satisfied with what he has experienced, commits suicide with him. Fans are going to cry like hell, but as creator Neil Druckmann reminds us, this is actually a joyous moment:

Episode 1×03 of ‘The Last of Us’ is sad, but it is happy. And as far as the overall narrative framework of the series goes, it’s a lesson for Joel. “In the video game, Bill represented the worst possible outcome for Joel, which is to completely isolate himself from people. There was someone Bill could have loved. He chose not to and now that guy is dead and he’s going to be alone for the rest of his life. “explains Craig Mazin in The Hollywood Reporter on the original material, which, as we see, differs from what was seen in the series. When adapting it for television, Mazin wanted to do something different. “In the first two episodes we have seen people who are afraid, who are in a dangerous place, who hide or run or are worried or injured or have been killed. I needed something different at that moment,” he adds, aware that in the future of history we will see how love can be “counterproductive” or have disastrous consequences. “Not this story. Their story is really happy. Even if it’s sad, it’s happy. They win.”

At the end of the episode, we return to Joel and Ellie, who are going to visit Bill and Frank to borrow a car and supplies to continue their journey. The protagonists find the dirty dishes from their last dinner and the dust accumulating on the furniture. Silence reigns in their home and a letter on the table warns them not to enter the room on the floor below; It is the place where they lie, embraced on the beds, their lifeless bodies. What a subtle image that closes the episode: the open window of that room where there is no longer life, but love and hope..

In his letter to Joel, Bill says: “I hated the world and I was happy that they all died. But I was wrong, because there was one person who was worth saving. And I did that, I saved him and then I protected him. People like you and me are here for that “. This moment is important to Joel’s story because it is when he definitively decides that he will do everything possible to protect Ellie. Whatever it takes. Video game fans already know what that means. As Druckmann says in THR: “Every relationship that happens in the story somehow reflects on Joel and Ellie because it’s all about them. The idea here was to make Joel feel the danger of what could happen to his partner.” .

With this episode, Mazin and Druckmann have changed the rules of the game to offer us a story full of hope, a story that explores the connection between fear, isolation, the need to create a community, vulnerability, love and the desire for human warmth.